As Meat Loves Salt (16 page)

'Fallen?'

'Aye, where have you been? And Bristol two weeks back! Your namesake was there.'

'Mine?'

'Prince Rupert. It was he defended the town.'

'I knew Bristol was gone. Is Rupert dead, then?'

'Not he. Black Tom let him go to Oxford to the King. We should have put him to the sword, but that's Fairfax for you, honourable to a fault.'

'He's honour itself,'said Bart.

'Will you show him me?' Though I felt Fairfax had done wrong, showing so gentlemanly to a necromancer, I was more eager to see him than ever.

Philip explained, 'He's gone on to Exeter. He's black like your self; wears his hair a bit longer, mind.' Here they all laughed and I knew that one of them must have cropped me.

'You'll know him on sight,' added Bart.

'Was that why Rupert yielded? Because Fairfax was Fairfax?'

'Well. Long walls they had at Bristol, hard to man properly. And water running short. Once that happens ...' Hugh waved his hands expressively. 'We got the garrison supplies, but he saved his men and the citizens.'

'Were the citizens all Royalists, then?'

'Not when Rupert left, they weren't! His men flay the people, see, and he turns a blind eye. When he came out the townspeople were shouting, "Give him no quarter!" They'd have torn him to pieces if it hadn't been for Black Tom.'

I returned to the question I had asked before. 'What happens to the women on the losing side?'

'That depends,' said Philip. 'On your commander, on the luck of the day, the class of person you're dealing with ... I've seen everything. Seen them run through. There were Irish whores drowned back to back at Nantwich — that was Fairfax.'

'Not so,'Bart said. ‘A false report. He let them go.'

'No?' Philip jeered. 'Naseby, then.' He turned to me. 'You've heard of Naseby?'

I nodded. I knew what was coming, the slit faces, but was curious to hear his story.

'Well, you know God gave us victory outright?'

'Indeed.'

'Cromwell said it was cutting down stubble! And after, we found their women fleeing the field, some of them English gentry and some of them Irish. Not a word of English could they speak, what did they want over here, filthy Papist whores? We ran them through.'

'What, all of them?' I could not hide my shock.

'Only the sluts and the Irish. About a hundred. They kept jabbering, calling on Satan to save them.'

I could think of nothing to say.

'They were Welsh, not Irish,' put in Hugh. 'They were speaking Welsh.'

'Irish or Welsh, they were walking bow-legged.' Philip winked at me.

I asked, ‘And the English ones?'

'I told you, the sluts we paid off. For the rest, some paid us off, and some - well, we carved their faces for them.' He smiled at the memory. 'They were seemingly gentlewomen, but no decent woman would have followed that army. So we ploughed up their cheeks - put an end to their trade.'

'Basely done,' said Hugh, shaking his head.

'Suppose those bitches had found us wounded on the battlefield? You know what they'd have done to us?'

Roundhead. The wildest, the crop-headed prentices out for a savage holiday. They had told me that calling another man Roundhead in the presence of an officer meant a fine, it was such an insult. I remembered that Zeb could scarcely ride or walk and that Caro was tricked out in My Lady's blue gown. The jewels. Heavenly Father, let them not be overtaken by such men as this. For their sakes and mine, let me not be guilty of their deaths.

'Are you well, man?' They were staring at me. 'You were chewing your lips.'

I nodded, thinking,
This is curiosity not pity.
Izzy, how he did pity everybody. The men in front began singing psalms:

'O sing unto the LORD a new song; For He hath done marvellous things; His right hand, and His holy arm, Hath gotten Him the victory ...'

As long as I could fix my mind on the psalms all was well, but I could not long forbear thinking of Philip's words. I had heard before that there were plunderers and would-be ravishers in the Parliamentary ranks as well as among the King's men, but kept under a much stricter discipline. That restraint had seemed well enough, and as Ferris had said, soldiers are but men; yet I had not thought how it would be to live side by side with such. God's army! I could not go on walking next to Philip. I moved away from him and quickened my pace; it was not until I saw Ferris, walking alongside one of the great guns, that I realised I had been looking for him. He smiled at me but said nothing as we fell into step together.

'Were you at Naseby-Fight?' I asked him.

Ferris looked surprised.

I went on, 'What happened to the Royalist women who were left on the field?'

He frowned. 'They were barbarously treated,' and raised his face sharply to mine. 'Do you want to know how?'

I felt my cheeks flush.

'You already know,' he said, turning his profile to me.

'I hoped you could tell me it was not true,' I said.

'It is true. You get no more from me.'

I thought him unjust. 'Was it my sin? I was not there.'

He again lifted his face to mine. 'There are men who warm themselves at others' sins. Someone has infected you, heated you with his boastings, so you come to me for more.'

'No, indeed!'

'I can smell it on you. But you will be disappointed in me. My way has always been to show mercy where I could, to man, woman or child.'

We walked on. From time to time I glanced at my companion, but he kept staring ahead.

'Forgive me, Ferris,' I pleaded. It was the way I would sue for pardon to Izzy when I was too rough with him during our childhood games. This man had something of Izzy's way, and I should keep by him and away from the prentices — though Hugh was perhaps not a bad young fellow.

'You'll get your chance to hurt people,' he said, looking full at me.

This was mighty strange talk, coming from a soldier. I wondered if, like me, he was fallen away from some better fife.

'Ferris, how did you come into the army?'

He was silent.

I tried, 'So what trade were you put to before the war?'

'A draper in Cheapside.'

'Are you married?'

His face twisted.

It seemed I could say nothing right. I battled on, 'What will you do when the peace comes?'

'I should like to leave trade and farm for myself,' came the surprising answer.

'What, like a peasant!'

'No, like a freeborn man with no master over me. London is one great Babylon, a very Sodom of cheating - O yes, the citizens' houses too! You'd be surprised what goes on there. Between prayers they find out new ways to water the servants' milk.'

'You're bitter, Ferris.'

And you're not?'

A second time he had laid his finger on something I thought hidden. Was I then so easily sounded? No one at home had thought so, but London folk were different. We walked on a few steps, fear coiling my belly into loops.

'This bitterness of mine, can you tell—'

'I am not a soothsayer!'

'No, no. A jest,' I said. Not a good man to lie to; last year his friendship would have been a delight to me. Now, how could I tell him about the boy, or about my doings in the wood?

But even as I argued with myself, my spirit was opening to him. Again I felt how much I missed Isaiah, how I ached for a good and trustworthy friend. In the company of such a one I might mend, and live better.

'You wish to stay with me,' he said.

'Ferris! How do you know?'

'How can I
not
know! You are saying it to me, in your walk.'

'Is that a thing a man may interpret? To what end?'

'Well, it's of great help in training dogs.'He grinned and I saw that he had forgiven me. Was that because he thought of me as his dog?

'Take no offence,' he added.

SEVEN

Bad Angel

I
kept with
him from then on, except when we were forcibly separated, as for drill. By dint of frequent repetition I was now grown proficient in this, and not only joined with the rest of the men in proper form as regards rank and file, but also went through the pikeman's postures without pause or bungle. In addition I had learnt to follow the drum, and to know the beats for
Call, Troop, March, Preparative, Battle
and
Retreat,
all of which lessons I endeavoured to put into practice as best I might, for I was the same proud and careful workman I had always been.

Ferris's task, as he had said, was to help with the artillery, and there were many times when we could not be together. Besides, he had his own mates among the gunners. In fact, he had plenty of friends among all the better sort of men — after two days he had my coat ready, for one of these friends was a tailor — and he would often joke with them. But he hated certain kinds of bawdry, in particular tales of amours struck up with women obliged to give free quarter, when the men jeeringly recounted their conquests afterwards. At times, too, soldiers would chronicle some rape reported of the Cavaliers, speaking with a relish which showed them secretly envious, and this he perceived and despised.

Some of the men jestingly called him Mistress Lilly to his face, and must certainly have had a name for me too, but took care not to let me hear it. I was not so much under Ferris's sway that I was grown soft. One quick step up to a man, my eyes staring into his, settled most arguments.

'You frighten me, Rupert,' said Ferris one day after watching me see off a man who had tried to steal my snapsack.

'Have I ever picked a fight?'

'Not of late. But when I see you like that, I ask myself, will he know when to stop?'

This again put me in mind of Izzy. 'While you are there, I will always know when,' I said.

'You haven't in the past?'

He waited. I turned away.

'You should try to be friends with the men.'

I knew what he meant. Those walking near us did not care for me. More than once, coming back from the latrines or from drill I heard the tail end of some speech, perhaps my name, and then men's eyes would shutter over as I approached and the group would break up. As for their prattle, I cared nothing for it. But on occasion they would come and talk to Ferris, and he, being kind, seemed to relish it, and then I felt them squeezing me out. I had reproached him therewith, and he said that a man needs friends on the battlefield, that one of these had pulled him out from under a corpse at Bristol and that they were his companions still.

From time to time Nathan would join us, but some coolness was grown up between Ferris and him. The boy would hang about, seeming not to know what he should do, and though he spoke to me always with courtesy, I more than once found his glittering eyes fixed on mine as if I had done him some hurt. I could not recall any insult offered to him, and since his talk was wearisome, I was glad when he wandered away.

Not long after the time when Ferris said I should make me some friends, we were marching together and he asked me had I family living. That was a question I dreaded. He had once started on this tack before, but one of those fools broke in on us — the only time I was glad. Afterwards, I had chewed over my story, and now it was needed I had it at my tongue's end.

'I know not if my brothers are dead or alive,' I said. 'One of them I last saw at our Master's place in the country. He was wrongly suspected for ... something, and I had to go without knowing what became of him.'

Ferris raised his eyebrows at me and I felt I might as well have confessed. 'And the other?'

'Wounded, the last time I saw him. Not by me. He had a fever. I lost him in a wood and when I came out of it you found me on the road.'

His eyes rested on me, grave, considering. 'You left home in a great hurry, it seems.'

'Aye.'

We walked on a few yards. I knew he was waiting for more, but when he spoke it was to ask, ‘Are they like you, these brothers?'

'In their persons? Not nearly so tall. But we are all dark-skinned. Zebedee — he's the youngest — is the properest man you ever saw, gentry not excepted. Everyone that sees him, well, women ...'I paused.

^‘
A black man is a Jewel in a lady's eye,
eh? And the other?'

'Isaiah is the eldest, the one before me. He is weak of body and looks older than his years. But he does as much work as most.'

Ferris nodded. 'What I meant was, are they troubled in soul like you?'

'I would say, they have no cause.' It was the nearest I could get to a confession.

'If only you could find out what became of them,' he mused.

We walked on in silence. I felt his goodwill towards me. Perhaps one day I would be able to tell him everything, even that I was that detested being, a ravisher. I knew Ferris would not admit that her being my wife changed the case. He had already expressed himself more than once on this subject, and said no man might force a woman, no not his wife, for that it took away her bodily dignity. Whenever he talked of it he clenched his fists and jaw, and I at first concluded he must have witnessed many instances among the soldiery; yet when I asked him he said it was a thing, thank God, that he had never seen for himself.